Mini football figure - Russia

Russia

The Russian national football team is Russia's representative team in football and is organised by the Russian Football Federation Rossiyski Futbolny Soyuz.

Russia has so far qualified for three World Cups athletically (1994, 2002, 2014) and 2018 as host nation, as well as six European Championships (1996, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020). In the process, they reached the quarter-finals at the World Cup on home soil and the semi-finals at Euro 2008.

FIFA declared the Russian national football team the direct successor to the national teams of the CIS and the USSR.

History

At the beginning of the 20th century, Saint Petersburg was the great centre of football life in Russia. In 1900, nine new football associations were formed, but they did not last long. In August 1901, the secretary of the football club "Nevsky futbol-klub" and an employee of a thread manufactory founded the "St. Petersburg Football League", the first league in Russia.

The Russian football umbrella organisation is called Rossijski Futbolny Sojus (Российский футбольный Союз) and was founded in 1912. The Russians lost their first international match 2-1 in 1912 against Finland, which was still part of the Russian Empire at the time. The first official international match after the dissolution of the USSR was won 2-0 against Mexico in 1992.

Russian football had its heyday during the Soviet era, when the USSR national team was European champion once and European runner-up three times. While the Soviet team was heavily dominated by players from the big Moscow clubs until the 1960s, from the mid-1970s onwards the Russians were often outnumbered. Especially under four-time Soviet coach Valery Lobanovsky (1975/77, 1982/83, 1986-1990), Ukrainians rather than Russians made up the majority of the selection.

After the dissolution of the CIS team at the end of the 1992 European Championships, the Russian team was re-established, but success was mostly lacking. Contrary to the always high expectations, the team only qualified for two World and two European Championships, and was always eliminated in the preliminary round after sometimes disappointing performances. This led to a strong fluctuation in the position of national coach. With the exception of Oleg Romantsev, who led the team to qualification for the 1996 European Championships and the 2002 World Cup and remained head coach for a total of five years in two terms, none of the nine coaches was able to stay in office for more than two years. The low point was the tenure of Anatoly Byzhovets, the gold medallist coach at the 1988 Olympic Football Tournament, under whom six consecutive games were lost in the second half of 1998 and he was therefore dismissed after only six months. The Russian national team also failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, picking up only a 0-0 draw in their last match against Slovakia instead of the 3 points they needed.

Guus Hiddink took over the Russian national team in summer 2006. The coach, who reached fourth place with South Korea at the 2002 FIFA World Cup in South Korea and Japan and coached the "Socceroos" at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, took over as Russia's national coach on 10 July 2006. As runners-up in qualifying Group E, behind Croatia and ahead of England, they qualified for the 2008 European Football Championship in Austria and Switzerland. In Group D, the Russians then faced Spain, Greece and Sweden. After a 1:4 defeat against the Spaniards in the first group match, a 1:0 win against the 2004 European champions and a 2:0 win against the Swedes, the Russians qualified for the final round. There, the Russians met the favoured Dutch in the quarter-finals, whom they defeated 3:1 after 120 minutes. In the semi-final match against Spain, the Russians could not keep up their performance from the quarter-final match and lost against their opening opponent of this European Championship with 0:3 and were thus eliminated. In the qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Russia finished second behind the German team and later lost out to Slovenia in the play-off matches. Hiddink left the team in the summer of 2010 and was succeeded by Dick Advocaat. Under Advocaat's leadership, Russia qualified for the 2012 European Championship as group winners and met the Czech Republic, Poland and Greece in the group stage. A 4-1 win against the Czech Republic was followed by a 1-1 draw against hosts Poland. As leaders of the table, they met Greece in Warsaw and even a draw would have been enough to advance. However, they lost 1-0 to underdog Greece and, due to the direct comparison and the 1-0 victory of the Czechs in the parallel match against Poland, Russia was eliminated as third in the group.

As group winners ahead of Portugal, the Russian team qualified for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil under Italian Fabio Capello, who replaced Dick Advocaat, who resigned after the 2012 European Championship, and faced South Korea, Belgium and Algeria. A 1-1 draw with South Korea was followed by a 1-0 defeat to group favourites Belgium courtesy of a late Divock Origi goal, before they needed a win over Algeria in the deciding match to progress to the last 16. Alexander Kokorin put Russia ahead in the sixth minute before Islam Slimani equalised for the underdogs from Algeria; before conceding the goal, Russian goalkeeper Igor Akinfeyev was attacked with a laser pointer by Algerian spectators. The 1-1 draw meant that Russia was eliminated.

Fabio Capello remained national coach and also managed the Russian national team in the qualifiers for the 2016 European Championship in France, but he was sacked in the summer of 2015. His successor was Leonid Sluzki, who continued to manage ZSKA Moscow at the time. Under Sluzki, the Russian national team qualified for the finals in France and met England, Slovakia and Wales in the group stage. Here, too, the Russians were eliminated after the group stage. As hosts, Russia automatically qualified for the 2018 World Cup. Under new coach Stanislav Cherchessov, the Russian team first played in the FIFA Confederations Cup 2017, which was scheduled as a test tournament, where they met New Zealand, Mexico and European champions Portugal. The Russians were eliminated as third in their group. Before the start of the World Cup on home soil, the Russian national team won only five matches, but lost nine, while six other matches ended in a draw. Russia won the opening match against Saudi Arabia 5-0 and after a 3-1 defeat of Egypt, the Sbornaja qualified for the round of 16, missing out on group victory with a 3-0 defeat of group favourites Uruguay. In the round of 16, Russia surprisingly eliminated Spain on penalties before losing to Croatia in the quarter-finals, again on penalties.

Following the dismissal of Cherchessov after the 2021 European Football Championship, Valery Karpin became Russia's new national coach on 23 July 2021.

Participation in World Cups 

Russia was part of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1991, Russian players made up the main contingent of the Soviet national team alongside Ukrainian players, e.g. Lev Yashin, who participated in the World Cup with the USSR in 1958, 1962, 1966 and 1970, always making it past the preliminary round. The Russian team has qualified for the World Cup four times in eight attempts. Initially, they never made it past the preliminary round. This only changed at the 2018 World Cup on home soil, where Russia automatically qualified as hosts. As underdogs, Russia first made it through the preliminary round and then surprisingly qualified for the quarter-finals against Spain in a penalty shootout.

Participation in European Football Championships 

Russia took part in the 1960 to 1992 European Championships as part of the USSR or CIS. In the 1960 European Championship team, Russian players made up the largest contingent, while in 1988 only Rinat Dassayev, Vagis Khidiyatullin and Sergei Dmitriyev were Russian players and Ukrainian players, especially from Dynamo Kiev made up the bulk of the runners-up. After the break-up of the Soviet Union into several independent states, Russia took part in the qualification for the 1996 European Championship for the first time and qualified at the first attempt. Since then, it has only failed to qualify for the 2000 European Championship and has only made it past the preliminary round once. Up to and including 2008, Russia always met the future European champions in the preliminary round.